Up early in the morning and a large buffet breakfast. Down for the buses at 7:50.The buses leave promptly at eight. We will visit Kureha elementary school. We took a long drive through Kobe.Half the circling around for a while we arrived at Kureha elementery school in Ikedo city. This happens to be the place where Ramen noodles were invented. There is a Ramen noodle Museum here. Ikedo has a large population of immigrants. Many of the immigrants are from Korea and the Philippines. The school celebrates their origins and teaches classes in their native languages. We were invited to meet with the principal and had a short meeting in the school office where we were introduced to the school's philosophy and to some of the staff. We were then taken to a classroom where students presented a Korean dance done with fans. They also played for us on a Korean drum or Changue. The kids were amazing.
We watched a wonderful science class where students examined onion cells under the microscope.
We then visited a homeroom, where we had lunch with students. The students served a lunch out. It was excellent, curry rice and fruit plates. After lunch I played harmonica for the students. This went over very well. And Terry led the students in clapping. The students put away the lunch things. And then cleaned up the classroom. They moved all the desks. They took out brooms and swept the floor. A few students took wet cloths and cleaned the floor in the hallway.
The school is unusual in that it has a concert hall. The students are all very talented musicians and gave us a beautiful concert in which they sang and their band played. The band was amazing and will be performing in an international competition in Singapore.
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| Kanazawa crew with band |
After the concert we jumped on the buses and headed off to the Kobe Disaster Reduction and Human Renovation Institute. This museum commemorates the great Hanshin Awaji earthquake which took place in 1995. The museum is housed in an impressive modern building and contains a variety of exhibits which illustrate the horror and enormity of a great natural disaster.
Following the museum visits we returned to the hotel with just enough time to clean up before meeting Japanese teachers who had volunteered to show us the town for dinner. I joined Keiko who took us to a yakitori retaurant
. I was able to sample chicken hearts and ginkgo in addition to the usual yakitori fair.
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| Yakitori on the Grill |
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| The Crew |
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| Chef and Assistant |
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| Ginko seeds |
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| Shimonaka-San and Janine |
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| Japanese Traditional Pressure cookers |
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